Wheelchair

The February Update

Posted on by burf2000

Welcome to another monthly update, I hope the start of your year is going well. So off the top of my head, February does not feel like a productive month. I can’t pull out much that makes headlines. I lost at least 1 week to car (Jeep) issues, another morning to Governor duties, and so on.

The Jeep

So my father and I bought a Jeep (secondhand) to take the kids out more, my current car only has 4 seats and as I have 3 kids we always needed to take 2 cars. This has turned into a nightmare and has already wasted 2 of my Wednesdays (viewing it, picking it up) however I am sure something good will happen. This is not a project just a pain in the arse!

Governor Duties

So I am proud to say I am now a Governor for my kid’s local schools (notice schools, not school). I wanted to give back and try and be useful somehow however this got a be mixed up and I am now a Governor of 3 schools. The workload so far has been more than expected however it’s around learning what goes on and training. I am honestly hoping I can be helpful but balance this out with the robotics stuff.

Nissan Micra

So my epic neighbour gave me his old Micra which was lovely. It’s not moved for years so the idea was to get it back on the road and see how I can go with making it drive itself. Well at least detect the road etc. This had its MOT today and failed on 1 tire, however by the end of the day, that should be done.

FOCUS 🙁

So if you read last month’s update and have read the above, you would be correct in thinking I am massively failing in being focused. The first 3 items seem to be nothing to do with the focused plan from last month! Let’s review last month’s main points

InMoov Humanoid Robot

So I hope to do some work on this today however progress has been made on this.

  • The front neck piston is fixed
  • The head roll now works
  • A new more powerful power supply has been fitted (6v 60 amps)
  • I have fixed the shoulder joint that broke
  • The lower torso is now working
  • Made custom cables for it
  • I also created and 3D printed an object to raise the Inmoov up as the arms were hitting the base.
  • The right arm now has an issue that needs investigating

So left to do is fix the XY eye moment (or replace it), finish a little wiring, and configure the software.

Red Inmoov Head

This was probably my favorite project last year however it always bugged me that the sound feedback was terrible and the jaw didn’t work properly. I decided to try and fix this and it’s now a lot better. It’s stopped using the Burf.co chat API which I need to fix.

Mobility Scooter / Electric Wheelchair

So my PS2 controller sensor turned up from China which meant I was able to use it with my little Arduino project. It works pretty well now and can control the wheelchair

Maths

Very little progress was made here and I need to work on fixing that.

Autonomous Car: Deep Learning & Computer Vision for Beginners

Nothing was done, again I need to work harder to get this done

Burf.co

Now that it is easy to deploy, I have been doing some vital bug fixes for it.

Running

I have started running again which can only be a good thing 🙂

Defining some goals and staying to them

So it’s the 1st of March and I think I have made some good progress over the last 2 months however there has been a lack of focus and life has thrown in some issues. Life will always get in the way but I can try and reduce the noise and lack of focus.

  • Goal 1: Finish the Inmoov robot and fix the issues listed above so that the robot can be demonstrated to people. This is not far away and has been my main focus!
  • Goal 2: Remove the grounding issue from the Red Inmoov robot.
  • Goal 3: Add paging to Burf.co and update the database. Done
  • Goal 4: Create a demo of controlling the Electric wheelchair with a PS2 controller. Done
  • Goal 5: Create a demo of controlling the mobility scooter with a PS2 controller (reducing to low priority)
  • Goal 6: Spend some time at Khan Academy on Algebra and Geometry. (increasing the priority to medium)
  • Goal 7: Do something around self-driving with the Micra else sell it. (high)
  • Goal 8: Continue with self-driving courses (medium)
  • Goal 9: Improve Burf.co Chat API (low)

Reviewing the list from last month (above), things are looking pretty good. One goal has been added around the Micra however if I do not set one, it’s a waste of money and needs to be sold.

Friday Update: Where has the time gone?

Posted on by burf2000

Hello and welcome to another Burf update! I can’t believe it’s been over a month since my last post and it’s nearly Christmas. I think quite a lot has happened over the last month, but who knows until I list it?

Wheelchair Hacking
So in my last post, I wrote about trying to hack the wheelchair. I decided to take a different direction in this by designing and 3D printing a device that would control it for me. This taught me some useful skills including using Fusion 360.


DevCon
Compsoft Creative hosted another DevCon which was great! I showed people 3D printing, VR and then moved on to continue my work with Wheelchair Hacking. I focused on programming the remote for the wheelchair using Arduino IDE.

I plan to continue on this today as I have the day off. The aim is to be able to control it via an infrared Remote Control using an Arduino Mega and some servos.

Update: IT worked!



Trigger TGB Mk1

I also bought a new vehicle, a 50CC moped trike that is known as GoCar’s in the US and used in Tourism. My dad and I have had some good fun with it already. We have some big plans for it. I technically saved it from rotting in a shop’s back garden 🙂

The Loft

I also did some DIY!!! I know, shut the front door! Randomly I had a day off work and my dad and I boarded the loft. That was a long day!

Math

So I am still plowing through this, I have been jumping forward a little so that I can get to learning Algebra sooner. Writing this post reminds me to do more

The Complete Self-Driving Car Course – Applied Deep Learning

So this was one of the courses I wanted to do this year, and I have now started it. I should have probably started the Coursera one first but hey ho!

Project Lancelot lives
I have taken ownership of the crazy Lancelot project my dad and I built last year and spent a bit of time getting it back up and running

Vevor CNC machine
I got this great little machine from my dad for Christmas last year and thought I would give it a go one evening. It sadly didn’t go to plan due to a malformed chuck however with a bit of brute force I managed to fire it up. I am not sure how much I will use it, I feel I need to master designing stuff for 3D printing first however it was still interesting. Again you can use Fusion 360 to design and plan your milling.


Review

So in my next blog post, I hope to review what I have done this year, the good the bad, and the failures! I also want to start to think about next year’s goals and really focus on some harder targets, ones that are less playing and more life-changing.

The Great Western LEGO Show

Posted on by burf2000

The Great Western LEGO Show was held at Swindon Steam Museum and took place on the 6th and 7th of October and boy was it a busy one. With over 8400 people turns up. The place was rammed. I took my largest ever display featuring:

  • T1
  • The LEGO Wheelchair
  • Wheeler the robot
  • NXT train layout
  • Robotic arm
  • Pneumatic steam engine
  • Robotic pneumatic body
  • Simple Theo walker
  • A really simple line follower

 

Here are some awesome professional videos of the event.

I also took some videos.

And finally my Flickr steam.

Great Western LEGO Show 2012

 

 

World First : The LEGO Wheelchair

Posted on by burf2000

So here is a prototype of my latest project, the LEGO Wheelchair which is capable of moving a 90KG person around a room using just LEGO Mindstorms, LEGO Technic and Rotacaster multi-directional wheels.  This is still a prototype and under constant development however I really wanted to let people see what I have been up to.

My wife giving version 0.8 a test drive.

Me having an initial go on version 0.5.

The lastest version uses 6 LEGO Mindstorms NXT’s for moving and 1 NXT(master) for controling the direction.  Each of the driving NXT’s has 2 NXT motors attached to it and 2 touch sensors used to control direction.  The master NXT has 4 touch sensors connected (forward, back, left and right) and 2 motors to switch on the drive touch sensors.  It is programmed in RobotC.

One of the next things on the list is to add remote control to the wheelchair using an Android device.  The chair is controlled via 1 NXT, this will be very straight forward to control via bluettooth.

Flickr stream

Special thanks goes to LEGO and Rotacaster for supporting this project!